Cross-Infection Due to Imipenem-Resistant Bacteroides fragilis Associated with a Totally Implantable Venous Port

Abstract
Four patients in an oncology ward developed Bacteroides fragilis bacteremia over a 12-day period. Cross-infection between two of them, due to an imipenem-resistant strain, was demonstrated by epidemiological investigation and genotypic typing methods (arbitrarily primed PCR fingerprinting and nucleotide sequencing of the cfiA genes and upstream IS 1186/ IS 1168 elements).
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